Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars?

So there's a Cadillac commercial that was in heavy rotation during the Olympics. It stars Neal McDonough, who's played a shady creep in pretty much everything I've ever seen him in (Desperate Housewives and Justified spring to mind; he's always a great choice for a villain), selling Caddy's new electric model.

Here it is, if you want to watch.

Anyway, the Huffington Post got itself in high dudgeon about the thing, calling it a "nightmare."

I've seen the commercial, and I think it's pretty awesome. Not because the message appeals to me, but particularly because it doesn't -- it's not designed to appeal to anyone who would already be thinking about buying an electric car.

All electric-car sales and PR campaigns, to this point, have an element of altruism at their core. (Buy one and save the planet, etc.) This ad doesn't care. It's just "Buy one because it's the new thing. Because we're American. Because we work harder. Because we deserve to have all the best stuff."

It's an irritating message to libs like me. The dude comes off like an arrogant prick. But to the people this ad is meant to appeal to, riling people like me (and HuffPo readers) is a plus. And I understand that -- that multilingual Coke ad in the Super Bowl was nice and all, but wasn't it even better because it stuck a thumb in the right wing's eye? Wasn't watching that ridiculous freakout fun? Pass the popcorn, and maybe I'll wash it down with a Coke.

Cadillac has decided there's a market for electric cars beyond people with environmental concerns. That's GREAT.

Rob
(Most of this post originally appeared as a comment in a pal's Facebook thread.)

Actions speak louder than wombats.

Been laughing for an hour at this site. Trying not to make noise -- Kathy's asleep -- so I now have a splitting headache. Damn You, Damn You Autocorrect!

Rob

Ulp.

This could be beyond bad.

Rob

This Joke Does Not Compute.

Humor doesn't always age well.

The style of presenting a gag changes, for one thing. Setups that are fresh and innovative when first presented can seem tired and lethargic when viewed after 40 years of other comics building, tweaking, and distorting that initial joke.

Other things, we're just not comfortable laughing about anymore. Tastes and sensitivities change, and while there are things we'll joke about today that would scandalize previous generations, it doesn't take a lot of digging to find jokes from the past that we'd find outrageous today (say, practically anything Frank Sinatra ever said onstage to Sammy Davis, Jr.).


But sometimes there are other problems, too.

Kathy & I were watching Woody Allen's 1969 film Take the Money and Run, which on the whole holds up really nicely. I'd never seen it before, and it's so light and silly that it just gallops along. Most of the Woody Allen comedies I'd seen were quirky, human-scale things, with the humor coming from character's insecurities and neuroses. This, though, was full of sight-gags and non-sequitur, like when Allen's character's girlfriend "makes him a home-cooked meal" while he's in prison: a hard-boiled egg that she presses through the screen that separates them in the prison visitation room, replicating those wire egg cutters somewhere in the back of a kitchen drawer in ever house.

But there's one moment that used to be funny, and simply wasn't any more. Allen's character (Virgil) is applying for a job at an insurance company, and just lying his way through the job interview, since as a lifelong thief, he doesn't have any job experience. (As an example of how bad his lies are, when he's asked what kind of an office he used to work in, he says "rectangular.") Further along in the interview, he has this exchange with the manager:

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had any experience in running a high-speed digital electronic computer?

VIRGIL: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Where?

VIRGIL: (A short pause.) My aunt has one.

At the time--the year I was born--"My aunt has one" was a ridiculous answer. It was the height of absurdity: What the hell would his aunt be doing with a high-speed digital electronic computer?

Now, of course, there's one in every home. That joke simply doesn't work anymore.

And when I realized that, I laughed so hard I had to pause the TV until I could catch my breath.

Rob

Going with the Flow

The other day, when doing a little factchecking for the Voice, I found Muckety.com, which is full of interactive organizational and cross-connective flowcharts. It doesn't seem entirely complete to me--and I notice Disney's Marvel buyout isn't represented yet--but I still think it's a fascinating tool. (Here's the map on Joel Coen, to choose someone innocuous. And here's the one on FreedomWorks, one of the organizations ginning up the healthcare protests.) It might work better as a monitored wiki: Enough participation to allow passionate people to include minutia, but with a few guiding hands to keep the tinfoil hats from running wild.

Still... feels a bit like A Beautiful Mind, dunnit?


Rob

I, Twit.

So a year ago, maybe two -- right when Twitter started, whenever that was, I can tell ya that -- I signed up for a Twitter account. And then never did one damn thing with it.

I just let it sit there.

Waiting.

But today, I was curious about a hashmark on a friend's tweet, so I went onto the twitter page and tried to log in with my user name and a possible password I might have chosen back in the day. And whaddya know, I'm on!

In my excitement I actually tweeted: "Holy shit I have a Twitter account!"

It was then that I remembered that there was a feed of all the people who are cursing on Twitter, and I could watch my inaugural swearing scroll up the page along with the words of my filthy-mouthed brethren.

But I couldn't remember the url of the curse word feed, and a quick search didn't turn it up, either.

Sigh. Fuck that, then.

Rob

My Phone Knows Me So Well

I’m tickled pink that the EZText on my phone’s text messaging software recognizes 7378378464 as “perverting,” instead of “requesting,” as I’d intended. I am so much more likely to pervert than request.

Rob

Asking For Whom The Bell Tolls

Well, I got a new cell phone. And to date, I haven't gotten a call on it. Which means that every time I hear a cell phone ring, I check mine, because I have no idea what the little wonder sounds like.

Rob

BooYAH!

I went to my meeting last night and logged another drop of 2.6 pounds. That's what this Sony TZ laptop weighs!

Sadly, I also lost 100 gigs of computing power. All from my ass.

Rob